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how to cite CD-ROM resources (Turabian)
I have the PC Study Bible, which is a collection of resources (Bible versions, commentaries, &c.) bundled together and accessed via a special software program. How do I cite one of the resources Turabian-style?
If it were a print book, I'd write (in a footnote):
Adam Clarke, Commentary taken from the Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments . . . , new ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, n.d.).
Do I simply put something like one of these at the end:
(Nashville: Abingdon, n.d.) CD-ROM (Biblesoft, 2006).
(Nashville: Abingdon, n.d.; [CD-ROM] Biblesoft, 2006).
Or is there more to it than that? Do I need to specifically cite that I'm using version 4.1a of the software, or is the date good enough?
Also, since the resource doesn't have page numbers, how do I reference a quote's location in the text?
EDIT: I notice that if I copy text from the commentary, the program inserts below the copied text, "(from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)". This might be an important piece of bibliographic data, but I don't know.
zpletanzpletan
I'd vote you use what the application provides. The software authors went to the trouble of providing additional behavior during cut and paste, so they obviously thought that the information was important.
– Joshua Drake
@JoshuaDrake, wouldn't that pass over a lot of data (e.g. actual work title, place of publication) that is necessary to most citation styles?
– zpletan
I'm assuming that you're talking about doing citations in the style of Kate Turabian's book *A Manual for Writers. (If that's not the case, than this answer may be incorrect.)
The Table of Contents for the seventh edition of the book is online here, and while I don't have access to it, any good library will have it. I'd first check out Part II, Chapter 17, section 17.5, "Additional Types of Published Sources". If that doesn't work, you can try section 17.7, "Informally Published Electronic Sources".
Failing all that, and if the book has no guidance for citing a CD-ROM. The current edition was "updated to reflect The Chicago Manual of Style, fifteenth edition" (according to the books' website), so I think it would make sense to consult the Chicago Manual of Style as a fallback for this. CMOS 16th edition gives these examples of CD-ROM citations in entry 14.168:
The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), CD-ROM, 1.4.
Hicks, Rodney J. Nuclear Medicine: From the Center of Our Universe. Victoria, Austral.: ICE T Multimedia, 1996. CD-ROM
The differences between the two are unclear. Perhaps one is a multimedia CD-ROm and the other is not? I'm guessing the 1.4 is a version number?
At least the first example shows what to do where there's no primary author. (Like the case of the Bible, I'm guessing.)
Here's the full CMOS entry. (Note: link is accessible to CMOS subscribers-only, but CMOS is available in most libraries with decent reference sections.)
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I asked my professer (duh, shoulda done that first), and he said to cite it as I would a print work, noting that it is in "electronic format." This appears to follow the guidelines for e-books.
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